Band saws are inherently a high-risk piece of machinery, since an operator's hand is often the means used to push material to be sawn toward the moving blade. A substantial number of injuries result from use of a band saw as is common in meat processing plants to dismember carcasses. Any person operating a band saw must remain alert while working an entire shift, since the human hand that manipulates the meat being cut is as vulnerable to the saw as is the cut of meat. Other industrially applied, hazardous mechanical cutting or compressing equipment exists.
Physical guards are known. Devices to hold cuts of meat are known. Conductive gloves are known from a number of patent documents. No prior art describing an effective and reliable way to locate an operator's hand in sufficiently close proximity to a cutting blade of a bandsaw to be at risk, and then to halt that blade safely before damage to the operator's hand can occur is known.
An improved guard would reduce the present high rate of hand injuries arising from use of band saws, thereby raising productivity of a work place, reducing often substantial and sometimes permanent injury, and avoiding time off by skilled persons.
“Video safety curtains” are a conceptual description of optically based virtual protection means; used for example in car assembly factories when robots are operational to minimize risk that a human operator may collide with a slewing robot.